Cool Campus

     Uncle Jack and Mrs. U.J. have been pretty much holed up in their air-conditioned condo for the past couple of weeks but a change in the weather has allowed them to get out in the early morning for their usual brisk walks through the neighborhood.  Yesterday they hiked through the tree-lined streets of Guilford, the exceedingly upscale residential area just north of their condo, and this morning they returned to the Johns Hopkins Homewood campus across the street, their favorite exercise venue.
     The campus is quiet during the summer break except for the sounds of heavy construction equipment at the site of the new addition to the Eisenhower library and a couple of gangs of workers putting the finishing touches on the renovation of Gilman Hall, the oldest building on campus, which has been underway for the past two years.  They had the wide, brick and marble walkways pretty much to themselves except for the arrival of several busloads of young lacrosse players from area schools who are participating in a summer camp.  Johns Hopkins is a perennial collegiate lacrosse powerhouse and this is no doubt one way to get a look at prospective recruits.
     The highlight of their morning was a visit to the newly renovated interior of Gilman Hall which they have been eagerly awaiting ever since their arrival in Baltimore a year and a half ago. It was not a disappointment as the pictures below suggest.

 Sherwood Gardens in Guilford is as lovely as ever in spite of weeks of extreme heat and drought.  The park has an extensive underground irrigation system that keeps everything pretty

. The new library addition threatens to eclipse the old building next door which is one of the least distinguished buildings on campus  in Uncle Jack's estimation.

  Right now, though, it's just a hole in the ground which keeps getting bigger every day.

The stained glass windows in the Hutzler Reading Room, now completely refurbished, are the pride and joy of Gilman Hall.  Mr. King was a 19th century Baltimore businessman who made a ton of money and then devoted the last 25 years of his life  to the fledgling Johns Hopkins University.

The Gutenberg window,  one of nineteen that provide light and beauty to the reading room (where Uncle Jack plans to spend more than a few of his waking hours henceforth, proudly wearing the Johns Hopkins T-shirt he purchased at a yard sale for fifty cents. (Considerably less than the cost of tuition).

The view from the nineteen windows will not make it easy for scholars to concentrate on their studies.

Eat your heart out Oxbridge.

Lacrosse crossing.

The Sands of Time (past)

       As the Nags Head and Dare County commissioners continue their dogged pursuit of many millions of dollars to heap sand upon dwindling beaches it might be instructive to look back at previous costly efforts to stop the ocean in its tracks.  When Uncle Jack lived in South Nags Head from 1992 until he moved to Baltimore last year he wandered the beach frequently, taking pictures of whatever was going on at the time.  Thousands of these pictures still reside on the hard drive of his current laptop which from time to time he attempts to purge to make room for new pictures of the wonders of Charm City. The pictures below are a few that he ran across recently which record various episodes of expensive futility as mere mortals struggled to prevent Mother Nature from removing man-made structures that were impinging on her beaches.

     This is part of the  50-foot wide, 10-15 foot high berm that was built the entire length of  Nags Head in 2004 after Hurricane Isabel tore things up rather badly in September 2003.  FEMA contributed about $3 million to the ill-conceived project with another roughly $2 million added by state and local treasuries.  Thousands of truckloads of sand were hauled to the beaches from borrow pits in Currituck county.  While it was officially described as "compatible" with the existing sand Uncle Jack found this to be a dubious claim inasmuch as much of the stuff looked and acted more like clay than sand.  In any case it soon washed away so it didn't really matter in the long run---or the short run either for that matter. The chief beneficiaries of this largess were a few oceanfront property owners who were able to avoid the cost of bulldozing for a year or two and the dozens of  dumptruck owners from all over northeastern North Carolina for whom the year 2004 brought an unprecedented bonanza.

Subsequent storms chopped away at the berm and removed most of it in short order.  Actually the berm project was done in two phases.  Work started at the southern end of  South Nags Head in the spring of 2004 and then stopped for several months for the tourist and turtle-nesting seasons.  By the time berm-building resumed in November much of what had been done in the spring had already vanished.

Heavy equipment owners and operators did well, too, as did the engineering company that planned and executed the debacle.

This section of the berm at Seagull Drive was to have protected the newly constructed post-Isabel street
at the left.  Subsequent storms took it all away in a relatively short time.

Seagull Drive after the temporary road and its protective berm washed away.  Back to square one.  All the cottages in this picture are condemned and awaiting removal or demolition at this date.

These two pictures chronicle the Town of Nags Head's expensive but ultimately futile effort to stop the ocean from claiming Surfside Drive in South Nags Head.  Successive walls of massive sandbags were erected only to be knocked down and overwashed by storms, leaving the beach in dreadful condition as shown here.  Eventually the town gave up and cleaned up the mess, revealing a wide and natural beach under all the detritus.

Will a $32 million beach renourishment project be enough to save these houses from the wrath of Mother Nature?  Stay tuned.

Nice while it lasted.

     If there has ever been a more perfect July 4 weekend on the Outer Banks Uncle Jack missed it.  Packing the Mini and leaving Nags Head on Monday the 5th was almost as hard as giving up bourbon a few years ago. He and Mrs. Uncle Jack got in some lovely walks on the beach after the excruciating heat went away in the middle of the week and he took a few pictures, some of which appear below:

One morning thousands of minnows like these were washed up on the beach for miles.  Who knows why?

This house near the 20 mile post has been derelict and blocking the beach for years.  Looks like it's about to be moved.  Which reminds Uncle Jack that "Sal de Mer", the subject of his last blog, was torn down back in May, not moved to a new location.  Would that the same will happen soon to some of the other wrecked houses in South Nags Head.

Like these fronting the former Seagull Drive.  What a mess.

Another view of the unsightly and dangerous wreckage of Seagull Drive.

The new Jennette's Pier is coming along.  Nearly half of the temporary "work pier" has been removed, revealing what the finished structure will look like.  Three wind turbines are in place and ready to generate electricity when the time comes.

The magnificent pier house looks very much like a traditional Nags Head cottage.  The whole thing is a serious challenge to Mother Nature who managed to wreck several previous iterations of this pier. Hopefully she will lay off until after the grand opening next year.